


Green apples

by SharpestRose



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-01
Updated: 2011-07-01
Packaged: 2017-10-20 21:59:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/217505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SharpestRose/pseuds/SharpestRose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bootstrap dreams.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Green apples

Apples. Green apples.

Comfort you with apples, the Bible says.

Do I make a right proper cleric then, Bill?

He breathes in again and the water tastes of salt and dead things.

At least, this is what he tells himself.

Holding that wriggling creature so slick and red and squalling, too new even to be crying and then the wail, the hungry screaming in search of air. Little William, his dad's dark eyes and a bit of hair already on that perfect round small skull.

Dad please let me come, I want to see the things you talk of.

When you're older, lad. Pass me one of them apples, will you? Ah, tastes like sunshine.

Too dark down here for moonlight, or perhaps he would drift apart and settle in the silt beneath. An eternity of drifting rolling wavering. An end to this dreaming and remembering. An end to this.

Himself and not himself, the boy grown up, rough hands that don't smell of fish and salt and wind. Will not Bill, the mouth that's more his mother's than his dad's. Metal that glows and hardens, shaped by those clever fingers.

Rush of pride - my boy, how clever. A smile that would ache from lack of practice if anything ached anymore. Yearning for an ache.

Beads on skin, the flutter of hands that seemed never fully jointed to the wrists.

Savvy?

Hush Jack, don't teach the boy to talk like you.

William, I reckon your missus is plannin' to put airs on this small fellow.

Stories mum used to tell on nights when dad left them alone about girls in the forest and wicked queens with apples in a basket don't eat those apples for they will poison you. But such a poison, such a crunch. Like the bones of birds the birds of bones a sad feathered tangle dead a long time up the crow's nest now that's irony for you there innit? The sound when Barbossa stamped down in sport, the sound of the bones of birds cracking crunching.

Sparrows and swans and Will caught all in the middle.

A girl all fine like a painting in a locket bite down to check if the gold is real. The wicked queen and a king from history stories with their poisons and curses and don't eat those apples or you will fall apart like a doll unjointed.

His mum had wanted him to be a doll maker, such clever quick little fingers.

A blacksmith with a sword and clever wrists that twist and dance like a snake charmed up out of a pot.

A child with awkward angles and clumsy stumbles fledgling coltish birds and horses the ugly duckling grows to be a Swann don't take that gold girl the apple's poisoned and you must kiss the child in the forest on the raft with the charmed snake hands or how else will he wake?

An old broken stool so beloved by tiny toddling William with plaintive eyes. Missing a leg it needs a peg then dunnit, the three-legged stool that falls one sided lopsided and Jack sticking his dagger in and it stands sturdy again.

Jack, you mustn't, William will cut himself.

Ah, don't you worry about that one missus, this kiddie's clever enough to stay away from the edge of the blade.

Jack sharp and clever and laughing a blade himself. Said his mother was a mermaid luring sailors out to sea and perhaps there's truth in the tall tale for there's Will on strong desperate legs following the call of the mermaid's child out to the ocean seeking gold and a girl lost in the forest. Black pearls on all the trees and a dress still warm.

Taking the dress home and he'll give it to Will and say pass this on to your mum and she'll give you a kiss on the cheek and then you can bring the kiss back to your dad, eh? I brought you back a little red jacket like those flash navy boys wear. Wear it quick or you'll grow too big.

Mutiny and theft and down down into the cool water he tells himself that it's cool but there's no feeling to it outside the memories he clings to runs through like a forest full of apple trees. Hungry but he can't bite for fear of poison.

One day she will say let's go to Singapore, and Will will nod and smile and say all right, for he will always say all right to her and there will be another who needs asking also who will say all right and swing easily up onto the railing and teeter there but never be cut by that edge and wave one hand like a small brown bird barely tethered. One day but not yet, a glimpse of a future tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow he'd had a sister who'd played a queen on the stage at a theatre all posh and red and smooth-angled she'd told one and all her brother was a merchant it was a lie they all told because the truth was too layered and difficult.

Green apples and a cut on a rough strong clever palm and birds in the sunset at the end of the story.

And then, for a moment, cold and black and salt.

And then.

An ending.


End file.
